I was given Cyclepedia: a tour of iconic bicycle designs for my birthday and it is a cornucopia of ugly bikes. Quite a few have already featured on these pages, a softride, slingshot, cannondale prototype lefty, biomega MN01, a couple of seat post less bikes from the 90s, 70s and 80s funny bikes, plastic whilhelmina, Skoot, .

With an emphasis on "design" rather than function there are a whole host of folding bikes, every last one of them ugly.

Not sure about the Cycles Hirondelle retro direct, maybe it is more bizarre than ugly & the pedals falliong off is definetely a downside

In case you are struggling to figure out the gearing - pedal forwards, high gear, pedal backwards, low gear

Silly thing I find is removing the frame from the leading edge (between the 12 and 3 o'clock positions for those playing along at home) exposes the tyre to the airflow. The speed of the airflow over the tyre is twice the speed of the bike. The extra drag would affect the speed more than the reduced weight.

This is why cars like this Mercedes were banned from Grand Prix racing.